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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wrap you tentacles around this one!, August 28, 2011
This review is from: The Book of Cthulhu (Paperback)
If you are fan of Lovecraft this IS the book for you. I have slogged my way thru dozens of Cthulhu inspired anthologies and this is by far the best! The Editor, Ross J. Lockheart of Night Shade books has assembled an all star collection of stories that buries the competition in its' utter elder goodness. This collection of stories was lovingly assembled from a myriad of sources, spanning from 1976 to today.
This book has many things going for it, including amazing stories and sheer girth. This book is meaty, the kind of meaty that would fill up the ravenous gullet of even the hungriest Deep One. But as we often hear size is not an indicator of success. Lockheart has shown just how much he truly he loves the Cthulhu Mythos with this anthology. I was amazed at all of the collected author's abilities to re-capture the weighty and elaborate writing style that made Lovecraft so amazing. While some of the stories reflect the time period they were written, all of the horrible goodness they contain is timeless.
I enjoyed not only the way the stories were placed in the book, but the veritey of time periods that the stories occurred in. From the Gold Rush to the Cold War and periods on either side of those, this collection covered so many ages it showed just how timeless horror can be.
For me this is the best Cthulhu anthology out there hands down! If you like Horror, you'll love this. I would honestly give this six stars if I could. Buy this it is worth every cent!
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15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ye Spawn of Cthulhu, August 20, 2011
This review is from: The Book of Cthulhu (Paperback)
I am honor'd to have a weird tale in this magnificent anthology from Night Shade Books, the publishers who brought us the wonderful volume of Lovecraft's complete poems, THE ANCIENT TRACK. This anthology is perhaps the very finest representation I have yet beheld of reprints from modern horror writers paying homage to H. P. Lovecraft. Some of these tales are already classics of their kind. T. E. D. Klein's "Black Man with a Horn" may be the single finest Lovecraftian tale ever penned (which merely means that it is my personal favorite), a perfect tale that evokes nameless horror and literary friendship. No other writer of the present age has brought the Mythos into modern time as smoothly and effectively as the amazing Michael Shea; his Lovecraftian fiction is rooted to Lovecraft's original vision and yet is vibrantly contemporary, and as weird as you wanna be. Ann K. Schwader is one of the genre's finest poets (her new book of Lovecraftian poetry has been published by Hippocampus Press and includes her sonnet sequence concerning Lavinia Whateley), and she is well represented in this volume. If you haven't read Laird Barron's two collections from Night Shade Books, THE IMAGO SEQUENCE and OCCULTATION, you have yet to experience the most powerful new voice we have. Barron blends skillful craftsmanship with an imagination of staggering originality, and he will scare the ichor out of ye. John Langan's premier collection, MR GAUNT AND OTHER UNEASY ENCOUNTERS, presented an amazing gathering of stories that, rooted as they are in the traditions of horror, raise those traditions to a level of amazing capacity; and, like Laird Barron, presents us with one of modern horror's finest stylists. Joseph S. Pulver's two collections from Hippocampus Press have assured him a solid place in the annals of literary horror; his prose is brutally poetic, it gets into your system and freaks your mind. Brian Lumley is represented in this book with one of his finest efforts, and Thomas Ligotti shows us why he is one of this era's Masters of the Weird Tale. Caitlin R. Kiernan has given us many superb novels, but she is equally engaging in the short story form; she is like some dark hypnotist who lures you into a realm from which, as long as dreams are dreamt, we never fully escape. Ramsey Campbell is one of our most respected writers of supernatural and suspense fiction, original and captivating. Most of the tales in this book are not easily found, which increases our gratitude to an editor who knows where to find the good rare stuff. The only serious omission among authors is Karl Edward Wagner, who surely belongs in this book.
My own story has an amusing history. I had decided to try and get away from writing obvious Lovecraftian tales. I had been reading an anthology of tales in the New Weird genre, and I thought, groovy, I'm gonna write a series of urban phantasies that have nothing to do with H. P. Lovecraft. I invented a City of Exiles, Gershom--it was going to be a modern city of utter strangeness. But when I think of exiles, I immediately think of Oscar Wilde; & so I invented a character whom I called "Sebastian Melmoth"--& if you are familiar with Wilde's biography you will understand the significance of the name. And then I surrounded him with friends of Wilde, and suddenly my "modern" non-Lovecraftian city became Victorian London with a little dash of fin-de-siecle Paris. And then I wrote a story of a woman from Boston who has a very Lovecraftian pedigree. & thus my plans were thwarted, and a new Lovecraftian locality rose from ye ashes of my wither'd brain. Oh well.
One of the great things about this book is that it includes material that is rare and difficult to find. Some stories appeared originally as chapbooks, others first appeared in magazines such as WEIRD TALES and FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION, and others were published in small press anthologies with limited print runs. Best of all, the story by LAIRD BARRON is original to the book and sees its very first publication in THE BOOK OF CTHULHU! (And--Brave man!--he used the word "eldritch" in ye tale! Ia!)
Great Yuggoth, what a rad and awesome anthology this is, THE BOOK OF CTHULHU. One wishes to ye black stars that it will spawn innumerable sequels.
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31 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Delivers, but not what was promised, August 28, 2011
This review is from: The Book of Cthulhu (Paperback)
I am utterly confused by The Book of Cthulhu. According to all the advertising and the introduction this was supposed to be a retrospective of the best Cthulhu Mythos stories. Don't just take my word for it ". . .Lockhart has delved deep into the Cthulhu canon, selecting from myriad mind-wracking tomes twenty seven sanity shattering stories . . ." or "A hand picked selection representing the best post-Lovecraft Cthulhu Mythos literature . . ."
So, based on this I'm looking forward to seventy years of Cthulhu scoured from the depths of rare fanzines ad hard to find paperbacks, topped off with some of the more interesting things published in the last decade.
Sadly not so. This is stuff, good stuff, but not a deep delve into the canon. In fact lets analyze that concept because frankly I claim false advertising. Of the 27 stories 16 are from 2000 or later, 2 are brand new, so more than half of this anthology is less than twelve years old. In fact, the earliest stories are from 1976 both from Disciples of Cthulhu: Lumley's Fairground Horror and Campbell's The Tugging, so the whole thing only spans thirty five years. Two stories from the seventies, three from the 80s, four from the 90s. Wow talk about a slanted pick. What exactly does post-Lovecraft mean? Oh and be clear there is no Derleth, no Carter, no Myers, no King, no Chabon, no Wagner, no Brennan. I mean really, you couldn't include Price's Wilbur Whateley Waiting?
Please don't misunderstand me, these stories are good, most of them, but I don't think its the book that was described. The deep delve was limited to the last 35 years and drew mostly from very mainstream magazines or other Cthulhu themed anthologies. So much was missed, and for such a fat book it seems to add very little to the shelf that wasn't already there. If your new to the genre this might be a nice anthology to have, but if your a collector, prepare to be adding just a few stories that you haven't seen before.
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